There seem to be a lot of posts about factory edge and sharpness. The reveiwer did a great job and even explained why the factory edge was used. Any company professing to be a knife company should be shipping their product in ready to use form, unless you buy your cars with no tires?
Consumers purchasing the most knives are purchasing them for home use, how do I know this? Because Chef/cook generally purchase a single knife and utilize it until it falls apart, which regardless of brand is usually 20-30 years down the road at which point they either no longer work in kitchens or they no longer cook because they are stuck in the office most of the time.
Great work by the reveiwer your work was exemplary and necesary and hopefully greatly beneficial to the people looking to invest in cooking utensils.

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 3:20 pm Post subject: out of the box use of kitchen knives

I have to agree - most users of kitchen knives do not know that it is customary to sharpen a knife right after buying it..... I didn't know until reading the comments on this site.... I have never bought a knife and sharpened it before use. I have sharpened them subsequently - after using for a bit. I too think the reviewer did a great job.

It's sad how passionate people are about hating on Cutco, maybe you had a bad experience because your parents didn't believe in you and want to buy them. I have used Cutco for over 4 years and I think they're fantastic, slight dulling but not as bad as with Wustoff or Shun, those knives need to be sharpened every time I have to use them. I bought them at Williams and Sonoma and it states that once it dulls out I have to sharpen it before each use. I have no time for that stuff, I don't need to spend extra time in the kitchen to cook a meal.

I believe the OP made this whole "test" up to bash Cutco, it is really pathetic to call it the dark side when I know that it has helped many kids go through college and get great experience with people. I am sorry your people skills are limited to sitting in front of a computer sipping warm Mountain Dew and bitching about your bad experiences with Cutco.

I for one love the "brainwashing" because thats what leads these individuals to success because regardless of "mediocre" knives they cut pretty damn well and in terms of longevity, having a relative have them for over 50 years. Will that computer you're spilling Dew all over last that long? I bet your virginity will thats for damn sure. This is a very sad posting.

By the way, the "rep" who sold Cutco, he had a bad experience because he wasn't following the program and thinking that all he had to do is show up and his smile and she will buy, clearly he can't handle rejection, but hey he will have no problem flipping burgers at McDonalds to get his satisfaction.

Just let that sit an marinade with you, because it tears me up that you sit here and bitch about an American product that is Guaranteed Forever, You need Jesus!

I am sorry but I was not about to read over 300 comments to see if someone else already said this, but I feel strongly that you cannot compare a "dimpled" aka Santoku, etc. knife with any knife that is not dimpled. It is like comparing apples and oranges. My personal favorite is the Wusthof Santoku. Just saying ...

I am sorry but I was not about to read over 300 comments to see if someone else already said this, but I feel strongly that you cannot compare a "dimpled" aka Santoku, etc. knife with any knife that is not dimpled. It is like comparing apples and oranges. My personal favorite is the Wusthof Santoku. Just saying ...

Thanks for contributing such a reasoned and thoughtful reply. You post greatly adds to the discussion.

I have used many chefs knives over the years and like the Chef's Choice 6" chefs knife the best. It is very heavy, and takes and keeps an edge very nicely when sharpened with the Chef's Choice sharpener. Just my 2 cents...

Not taking into account how easy it is to maintain and sharpen the knives is wrong. There are differences in forging and material used in the different knives. Harder steels generally have a better edge out of the box, but they're an absolute pain to sharpen compared to the softer steel ones. (Who OTOH, needs sharpening more often.)

Also, you failed to notice that the eastern knives have a different technique than the western knives. You didn't actually tell us what techniques you used when chopping. (Did you lift the knife up or did you use a sinewave like technique?) What sort of techniques you are accustomed to greatly influences how much you'll like a knife.

I have 2 complete set of knives that I work with. a set of Wusthof classics and a set of Cutcos. I currently have 2 homes and 1 set in each home. To prove that I am not some cutco/vector rep I am going to admit that it is very cult like and misleading the way vector chooses to do buisness. It's shady and a borderline scam. I wish cutco would disband from vector and start selling their knives by themselves and in stores. I bought my Cutcos from a kid in the neighborhood who was selling them out of good will but grew to love the product.
With that said I think cutco actually makes a incredible product and I am very surprised at its low performance grades in these tests. I do a lot of cooking and dicing of all kinds of fruit and vegetables and I am going to post my own personal review between the Cutcos and the wusthof.
Price - First thing I want to address is the price. Cutco and wusthof run around the same price, sometimes you can find a better deal on a wusthof but all in all 5 dollars isn't going to persuade anyone who uses these products everyday. I think both brands are worth the price and will last for a very long time justifying their higher prices. And as a side note there are plenty of brands out there even more expensive then these 2 go for.
Quality- All in all the quality between these two brands are very similar, both have very high quality handles althought the cutco seems a slight notch above in this department, I do like the Bolster on the Wusthof compared with the cutco. Both knives are obviously full tangs and are made out of high quality steel. Regardless of what is thought, as a engineer I can tell you that there is very little difference between stamped and forged metal these days so I won't get into that although I understand that forged is more desired.
Function/Performance- in this department I have to give the advantage to Cutco. I think the knives are sharper all around and not just on the serrated knives. For example my 3 inch paring knife from cutco is actually sharper then my 5 inch Santoku Wusthof knife. I also like the finish that cutco gives to their knives as I find it more stick resistant . I do find the Wusthof handles more comfortable but the Cutcos actually seem to make me adjust my hand less if that makes sense. The Wusthofs also are a little bit heavier in the blade end than the Cutcos leaving the knife feeling a little unbalanced in some of the larger knives as apposed to the Cutcos which have more overall balance. Overall I give the Cutcos the performance and function advantage but I will say that wusthof isn't very far off.
Misc - here are some advantages to each brand. wusthof offers a bigger line of knives and gives you more options while making your decision where cutco has one line of knives. Cutco however has the best warranty I've seen in any product and great customer service. Cutcos are made n America which to me is a important feature as I like to support our country and it's factory workers but nothing bad can be said about German craftsmanship either. Wusthofs can be bought in stores which makes it more convenient to the everyday cook while Cutcos are bought thru the sketchy vector cult(which is why I started buying directly thru cutco by phone)
I think cutco gets a bad rep because of the scams that those clones at vector marketing try to pull but if you look at the product in its entirety you will probably be surprised at how much you love the knives. wusthof makes a great product as well and I can't say which knives I actually prefer since I love them both but from a straight performance aspect, I'm going with cutco. Just my two cents , hope you guys find it useful

I've been observing the
"I'm not a Cutco rep but this is why they're so great"
to
"bash the Cutco rep"
to
"I'm an ex-Cutco rep and lemme tell you . . ."
and most everything between and beyond on either/both/all ends of the on-line debate / nonsense for pushing 30 years.

the bottom line to my impression is: it's not that Cutco makes a bad knife, the issue is Cutco extracts a premium price for a not really premium product. see MLM-101; for MLM to work, the actual product cost needs to be 5-10% of the selling price -

that's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of mathematics.

your point about the latest advances in "metals" and the stamped vs forged issue is quite valid. here's a question: has Cutco advanced to the latest alloys?

they make a big deal about "free" sharpening (well, it's not really free, but...) and forever warranty. news flash: all the big names warranty their product forever. been there, done that, ain't no folklore.

how about that sharpening thing . . . all those customers joyfully exclaiming "I sent my old knife in for sharpening and they sent me a brand new one!"

as an engineer, you should appreciate the fact that a company which can replace a product cheaper than sharpening the product, will / should tell you something. the cost-of-goods is extremely low - so low it does not warrant any attempt at sharpening.

the chef who is happy with a serrated slicing knife is better advised to simply buy a 500 pc made in China knife set from WallyWorld every 5-10 years vs paying sky high money for the same Cutco thing.

not everyone in the kitchen is enamored by serrated knifes for "everything" - which is why the upper end brands have not gone out of business.

I havent read all 350 replies, so this may have been mentioned before. I noticed that the knives rated at the top of the list were all Japanese style knives. Tradtionally Japanese knives are perfected toward fine workmanship when dealing with vegetables, while German style knives are better with heavy-duty projects. However, none of the tests included any heavy-duty work.

I'd like to see an updated test with some of the newer knives on the market, as well as testing the longevity of the knives. Let's face it, no one intends to spend $100+ with the expectation of having to replace it in a few years.

I recently tested the Wusthof Precision 8" Chefs Knife, $200 (exclusive to Williams Sonoma), and like the way it feels better than anything else. It didn't cut the carrot as well as the Shun or Global. I think it's fairly new, but has anyone else had any long term experience with it?

not really too sure an update would provide any serious additional information.

"new knives" basically boils down to "newer steel alloys"
forget about all the weird "just to be different" handle shapes / sizes / grips / whatever - either the knife fits your hand or it does not - and that is completely unrelated to the steel alloy attached to the handle.

in big brush strokes there's a general consensus that the Japanese approach is thinner, lighter, possibly with more brittle steel and possibly more prone to chipping that the old clunker German / French / American design styles. prettier, if you want to add that in....

so the question is: what does the difference mean in real life?
...lighter weigh - touted as less fatigue, less tiring, less repetitive motion injury.
okay. do you chop up enough cabbage in the home to endanger yourself to repetitive injuries?
...thinner = less effort. for stuff that cleaves apart when cut, not a factor, by physics.

I use my 10 Wuesthof slicer to skin salmon / trout sides with nadda' problem or issue. it's thicker, it's a double bevel, it's ugly - it is sharp and it works just peachy keen.

note however an extremely important difference in cutting effort "by design:" some Japanese styles are beveled to one side only. this is not exclusive. I have a $19 KitchenAid supermarket rack 7 inch santuko that is a single side bevel - cut like a banshee; for a while. then the edge fatigued and chipped up into a chain saw model . . . . every 3-5 months required a complete regrind and loss of 2+/- mm of blade width.

as to the out-of-the-box edge / sharpness.... that it may not be "optimum" - valid point. but that only drags in a lot of opinion on "what is sharp?" and "how good is you at sharpening?"
there are people who sharpen, hone, strop and polish the cutting flats to the point you can read a newspaper in the reflected image - and they provide macro photography to prove it.
question: is that realistic? is that representative of the common cook's need?
I admire their handy work / talent / skills, but I'm not even thinking about going there.

longevity is another issue of "and how do we quantify that?" I have a batch of "Classic" Wuesthofs - from the mid-1980's. I sharpen them myself, I use a steel regularly. they're fine.
I suspect the biggest longevity issue is the stability of plastic handle materials - given basic full tang / rivet quality construction.

hi there
read the article and loved it, however would anyone know if these are still the pick of the knives to buy.. im wanting to purchase my firsdt real good knife for my home cooking however im not wanting to spend much more than a $100.. can anyone recommend a knife/s i could possibly purchase.. im tossing up between global,wustof and the mac mth80.. is there a knife on the market for a home cook novice that may be suggested to me.. i appreciate and look forward to the responses
cheers